Earlier this year, rocket company SpaceX wowed the world by launching their largest rocket yet — Falcon Heavy — into orbit. At 70 meters tall and nearly 1.5 million kilograms, Falcon Heavy is the largest space-faring vehicle in operation today. The payload for the maiden launch? CEO Elon Musk’s own red Tesla Roadster. This multi-million …

At the end of a historic year for protein design, the Baker lab was honored to be profiled in the New York Times by famed science writer Carl Zimmer. Zimmer writes about the technology, progress and promise in the field, noting the contributions from our wonderful crowdsource participants. On the technology front, Rosetta continues to …

The lab was honored to be featured in Chemical & Engineering News’ annual Research of the Year roundup. Under a section titled “Computer-Driven Research Researched New Milestones”, C&EN highlight our determination of “600 families of proteins for which structures had been unknown (Science 2017).” Chemical & Engineering News is a weekly magazine published by the …

A report this week describes the first synthetic protein assemblies — dubbed synthetic nucleocapsids — that encapsulate their own genome and evolve in complex environments. The lead authors were Gabe Butterfield and Marc Lajoie. Synthetic nucleocapsids are built to resemble viral capsids and could be used in future to deliver therapeutics to specific cells and …

IPD researchers report the computational design of a new world of small cyclic peptides, or “macrocycles”. Natural macrocycles such as cyclosporine are among the most potent therapeutics identified to date, having the benefits of small molecule drugs, like aspirin, and large antibody therapies, like rituximab, with fewer drawbacks. There is considerable interest in expanding this …

In another major leap forward, researchers at the IPD have just published a revolutionary method for generating brand new protein drugs. These new drugs – called “mini-protein binders” – combine the specificity of antibodies with the high stability and manufacturability of small molecule drugs. The new de novo designed mini-protein binders were custom built to target either a …

Fentanyl, one of the most widely used synthetic opioids in clinical practice, has become a widespread drug of abuse and has played a central role in the growing opioid epidemic. With a potency 100-times that of morphine, fentanyl can prove lethal in small doses. Using a fully-automated design pipeline, we have generated high-affinity fentanyl sensors …

This summer saw a major advance in protein science: data-driven design. For decades, researchers have been trying to decode the rules of protein folding by studying how the complex, highly specialized proteins in nature hold their shapes. It’s a bit like trying to figure out how an airplane works – at its most fundamental level …

It’s been a hot summer in Seattle! To escape the heat, the lab headed east to the Alpine Lakes of the Central Cascades. Some hikes were short (just enough to swim in Melakwa Lake) and some were long (tracking until they hit snow). Zibo, a graduate student in the lab, brought a drone along to …